Science Teacher Working with National Geographic, Brookhaven National Lab

Sachem North science teacher Monica Marlowe has kept busy this summer, working with National Geographic and Brookhaven National Lab on two separate professional development opportunities.

Marlowe attended Year Two of National Geographic Education’s National Teacher Leadership Academy in July at the National Geographic Society Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

The goal of the NTLA program was to prepare teachers to train other educators on how to bring knowledge of the ocean to their students.

The NTLA program is a two-year program that consisted of a weeklong content-based professional development experience in 2010 at Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, ongoing classroom support in the 2010-11 school year, and an additional weeklong outreach leadership workshop in 2011.

The NTLA professional development program was based around a curriculum titled “Marine Ecology, Human Impacts, and Conservation,” which was developed by National Geographic Education staff and oceanography, geography and biology educators, and was designed to fit into high school life-science curricula, according to National Geographic.

This year’s weeklong program focused on teaching participants how to train others in using the new curriculum to bring knowledge of the ocean to their students. NTLA participants taught the ocean curriculum to their own students during the 2010-11 school year, and provided classroom-tested feedback, student work, and additional resources to enhance the curriculum back to National Geographic Education.

Brookhaven National Lab (BNL) provides a course for secondary science teachers called the "Open Space Stewardship Program."  Marlowe had been involved with this during the spring with her Advanced Placement Environmental Science students, working at their two on-campus ponds assessing habitat and water quality.  

“The goal of BNL is to raise student appreciation for the environment by bringing them outdoors for learning experiences,” said Marlowe.

She was accompanied in the summer course by John O'Neill, another Sachem North biology and science research teacher and the co-advisor, with Marlowe, of the Sachem Envirothon team.

“We hope to integrate more field trips and on-campus outdoor activities into the school year,” Marlowe said.